Catherine Knutsson - Shadows Cast by Stars

I may not enter.

Across the street, a path leads out to a park. Women stand out there, clustered around a fire, where racks of oolichan cure above the coals. The whole place reeks of smoke and fish, and my mouth fills with saliva. We haven’t eaten since yesterday evening, and even though I don’t really like oolichan, right now, I’m not choosy.

The man stops the truck at the store. He gets out, nods at my father, and stomps up the steps, disappearing inside.

My father watches him, then jumps out. “I’ve got something to take care of,” he says. “Wait here.” A man in a cowboy hat meets him halfway up the steps. They shake hands before heading inside. The girl on the steps doesn’t even look up. She just keeps weaving her basket.

Paul and I exchange curious looks. We’ve heard of this place all our lives. It was a mining town long ago, filled with Chinese immigrants who came to dig coal from the earth’s bones, but Others lived here long before that, steeping the land in their legends, their stories. Our father told us those stories, of a raven pulling a man from a seashell, of mountains that swallow people whole, of the lake, just beyond the trees, that has no bottom. Rumor has it you can still catch steelhead on the rivers around here. Rumor has it salmon still run and elk call in the fall.

But rumors aren’t real. All they do is make a person hope for something that can’t be, and what’s the sense in that?

Paul jumps off the tailgate and approaches the passenger side, where the blond-haired girl still sits, legs dangling out. I join him. If we’re going to be here for any length of time, we might as well make a friend or two, and I’m willing to try again. “I’m Cass,” I say, offering her my hand.

“Avalon.” She stares at my hand as if it’s covered in Plague marks for a moment, then jerks her chin toward the girl on the steps. “That’s Helen over there. You should go talk to her.”

I’m sorely tempted to tell this Avalon that she doesn’t get to order me around, but the girl on the steps has looked up. She has a beautiful moonface, open and sweet, but a blush is crawling up her neck. She heard what Avalon said, and she’s afraid I don’t want to talk to her.

But I do. Unlike Avalon, who makes me wary, this Helen reads like an open book. I feel like I can see right down into her soul. She shuffles to one side to make room for me to sit down, then takes up her basket again, working a new strip of dyed cedar into the pattern. “I knew you were coming,” she says. “Madda’s my auntie. I live with her.” She looks at Paul and purses her lips. “I see Avalon’s got her hooks into your brother already.”

Paul is grinning from ear to ear as Avalon laughs at something he said. “Corridor girls never really noticed Paul,” I say. My gut tightens into a knot.

“Corridor girls.” Helen snorts. “If the rest are like her, he should consider himself lucky. I’m sorry you had to leave your home behind, though,” she adds quickly. “Was it hard? Leaving?”

I don’t reply, because a lump has formed in my throat, hard and raw and threatening.

Helen nods. “Sorry. Dumb question. I’ve never been there, you know, though I’ve heard a lot about it.” She inspects her basket and picks up another strand of cedar.

I sit down beside her. “That’s going to be a good basket. Your weaving is tighter than mine.”

Helen looks up. “Oh, you weave?”

“Yes. My mother taught me.”

“Here.” She holds the basket out to me. I take it, along with a thread of blackened cedar, and work it in and out of the spokes. Helen smiles. “Madda’s going to like that you’re good with your hands.”

I’m about to ask why that would be, when someone at the far end of the street whistles. A dozen or so men emerge from the forest. They’re all wearing packs on their backs, and most have belts of ammunition hanging from their hips. Most also carry rifles. Band men.

Helen takes the basket back from me. “They were out at the boundary, at the south end of the Island,” she says as she stands. “I’ve got to go. If Madda comes here looking for me, tell her I’ve gone to back to the cottage, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, but Helen doesn’t hear my reply. She’s already jumped off the porch, rushing away in the opposite direction. The Band men don’t even notice her. A man with a vicious scar cutting across his face leads the men up to the store. He thumps his way up the steps and goes inside. The others follow, fierce and grim and dirty, though now that they’re closer, I see a couple aren’t much older than I am.

One by one they go into the store, except for the last in the line, a boy about my age. He has thick auburn hair, and hovering just behind his shoulder is a kingfisher cast in shadow. He looks at Avalon in the truck before shifting his gaze to Paul, and then to me. His eyes are the color of ash. He looks like he’s about to say something to me, but before he can, the door creaks open and a stout boy leans out. “Henry wants you in here. Now.”

The auburn-haired boy casts a half-smile in my direction, as if he’d rather stay, before ducking inside.

“Gotta go,” Avalon says, pushing her door open suddenly, forcing Paul to jump out of the way. She runs up the stairs and into the store without another word.

Paul scratches his head. “What was that all about?”

“Don’t know.” But I want to, despite myself. It’s not just Avalon’s reaction or that our father’s inside the store with all the Band men-it’s that boy, the one with the kingfisher shade. I’ve seen him before. I don’t know where, but I feel like I know him.

Paul shakes his head as I creep up the steps to press my ear against the door, in hopes of hearing something- anything. “You could just go inside, you know.” He yawns. “What are they going to do? Kick you out?”

I’m trying to find a smart reply when the door opens. I jump back as my father steps out. He gives me a funny look. “What are you doing there, Cass? Eavesdropping? You know what they say about curiosity, right?” He takes me by the shoulder and steers me back toward the truck. “In you get. You too, Paulie. We’ve got a house to go see.”

“Don’t we need our driver?” I ask as I shuffle along the hot vinyl seat.

“Nope.” My father grins as Paul climbs in beside me and slams the door shut. “The truck’s ours. And just wait until we get to the house! I know you didn’t want to leave, Cass, but trust me-things are going to be good here. You’ll see.”

I want to believe him. I want to believe him with all my heart. But good things don’t happen to people like us, and so my heart just hurts instead.

S omething changes as we head out of town. My father drives with one hand on the wheel, steering with careless ease. His other hand dangles out the window, tapping the door of the truck as he whistles “Alouette.”

Paul can’t help himself and starts to sing.

“Alouette, gentille Alouette ,

Alouette, je te plumerai!”

Our French is more patois than pure, but it marks us as what we are: Métis. Once the children of the coureurs de bois and their Indian wives of convenience, we are now just what the name means: mixed. Half-breeds. Not red enough to be red, and not white enough to be white. We don’t have a native tongue. Our myths are a curious twist of European tales and plains folklore, and never do we dance until we become one with the spirit world. We jig instead, hopping and skipping to fiddle and spoons.

The truck rumbles past house after dilapidated house. “We’re looking for a big rock with a petroglyph carved into it,” my father says.